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Renea Arias said her son Gabriel was in tears when he saw TV coverage of the recent tornado devastation in Moore, Okla.

“He was like, ‘Mama, I’ve got to do something … to help these kids,’” Arias said.

Gabriel, 10; his brother Joseph Arias, 7, and friends Seanna Galvin, 11, and Lexi Johnson, 12, went door-to-door, made calls and set up a lemonade stand to raise money, Arias said. They raised $400 to donate to victims.

“They kind of went above and beyond,” Arias said. “I helped them with what they needed help with … I didn’t have to really push them.”

Gabriel’s efforts are one of many examples of Texas Panhandle children deciding to do something to help the victims of deadly tornadoes that touched down in late May across Oklahoma.

From starting donation drives and cleaning out class funds to driving to Moore to lend a hand, the instances of kids helping their Oklahoma neighbors are too numerous to count.

River Road Independent School District students and faculty met after the tornado to figure out how to help.

“They wanted to do something,” River Road High School Principal Steven Scott said. “So basically we, for three days, gathered up … anything that was on the Red Cross list.”

The River Road High School Class of 2013 elected to give bake sale funds to two teachers whose families were affected by the tornadoes. One of those teachers decided her family didn’t need the money, so she chose to give it to another teacher whose family was hit hard by the tornado, Scott said.

The relief efforts were made possible by River Road students, teachers, staff and community members, Scott said.

“I was really proud of them,” he said.

Holy Cross Catholic Academy’s Student Council repurposed its traditional “penny war” fundraising competition by giving all of the proceeds to Catholic Charities of Oklahoma City for tornado relief, said the Rev. Robert Busch, head of Holy Cross.

“The competition ended up being a little more intense than usual, and the donations quite a bit more than usual, actually,” Busch said.

The competition took place over about five school days, and the academy was able to donate more than $1,700 to Moore relief efforts, Busch said.

The Panhandle High School Class of 2013 had planned a senior trip to Oklahoma City. After the tornadoes, they decided to head up a community donation drive, gathering donations of money and water from residents before taking the cash and supplies to Feed the Children, school counselor Jill Reynolds said.

“It was really neat,” Reynolds said. “The seniors, they kind of did the legwork and got it all together.”

Reynolds said the students were taken aback by the massive relief effort they saw when they unloaded their trailer.

“It kind of hit home for them to see what they were doing,” Reynolds said.

Troops 5703, led by Hester Harrold, and 5517, led by Wendy Bridges, collected items including hygiene products, first aid kits and work gloves for disaster victims, Moorhead said. Troop 5627, led by Pamela Layton, collected pet food and supplies for animal shelters affected by the tornado, Moorhead said. The Scouts’ Amarillo office also donated 12 cases of Girl Scouts candy and nut products, she said.

Tanya Trimble, 39, manager of Buffalo Wild Wings, 5416 S. Coulter St., said she, her friend Lisa Jones and Trimble’s 11-year-old daughter Autumn Logan took an SUV full of items donated by area residents to Moore, and saw the destruction the tornado left in its wake as they helped victims go through personal belongings and clear debris.

“It was kind of crazy,” Autumn said. “The pictures really don’t do justice to what you see.”

Bushland Middle School Principal Mark Reasor said his students managed to raise more than $1,400 in one day through a “hat day” fundraising effort in which students could donate $1 and wear a hat to school.

“It was kind of impromptu, and it kind of took off like wildfire,” Reasor said.

The hat day fundraiser became a full-blown community donation drive, Reasor said.

“The following week, one of our teachers delivered (the money) to the Red Cross,” Reasor said. “And she said they were very surprised that a school could come up with that amount of money in that short of a timespan.

“I’m particularly proud of all the service projects our kids do all year long. That was a great way to finish the school year.”

Western Plateau Elementary School students sold duct tape bracelets and other items to help raise funds for the Moore victims, said Star Self, mother of student Christian Harrison. She said Western Plateu faculty and staff were “very supportive” of the students’ efforts.

The Randall High School Class of 2013 elected to donate its class funds, about $800, to assist tornado victims.

“The kids were very willing to donate those funds,” Canyon Independent School District Communications Coordinator April McDaniel said.

Dede Munkres, a Lamar Elementary fourth-grade teacher, said she turned her students’ desire to help the tornado victims into an opportunity to learn.

The students researched aid agencies, wrote a letter to the school principal asking for funds from ice cream sales to donate and calculated donation totals. The students decided to donate the $770 they raised to Hillside Christian Church’s tornado relief fund.

“They took off with it,” Munkres said. “Everything that we did, they brainstormed it.”